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He was quiet for a long time, and I was content with the silence. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened, or how I felt. I didn’t want to talk about the seal, or what Paris had shown me. Or Diana. Or my job. Or anything, really.
“Hand me the tomato?”
I handed it to him, watched him slice for a minute, and went to dig in the pantry.
Flour, water, shortening, salt.
“Rolling pin is in the cupboard,” Achilles called over his shoulder.
Holding the ingredients, I managed to open the cupboard and find the rolling pin. Then I spread my finds on the table and got to work making a crust.
Achilles broke eggs into a bowl, whipped them, and added the mushrooms and tomatoes. I finished the crust, and pressed it into a pie plate. Together, we managed to make a passable quiche, and shove it into the oven.
“That’s not nearly enough food,” he said, the moment the door closed.
Something about the statement made me laugh. He’d chopped and diced and mixed, and now he told me?
I faced him. “Order takeaway?”
My phone was still upstairs, otherwise I’d do it myself. He pulled his from his pocket. “Curry?”
I groaned. It wasn’t because I didn’t love it. I practically lived off it when I first moved here, but, “I’d rather Greek,” I answered without thinking about how it sounded.
Achilles’ smile was slow, and reminded me an awful lot of the Grinch. “I have all the Greek you need.”
This fucking guy. I decided to ignore him. “Something not too spicy then.” My stomach was questionable at best, and I didn’t want to test its limits.
Achilles called to place the order. “It should be here in an hour or so.”
“You live so far out of town, I’m surprised they’ll bring it out.” It had taken Hector a good forty-five minutes to get within sight of other buildings.
“It just looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
I raised my eyebrows.
He smiled. “I tip really well. And, I don’t actually live here. This is Hector and Paris’s place.”
Oh. I thought all of them lived here. I supposed that didn’t make sense. They were all grown men, why would they share a cottage in the middle of the moors?
“It’s best if we come together, then go our separate ways. If we’re too long in one place, our powers tend to get a little… weird.” He opened the oven. “This was a good idea. I can’t believe you knew how to make a crust, just like that.” Achilles snapped his fingers.
Besides reading, I’d also loved to cook. “My parents ate out a lot, so I would help my nanny—” I stopped. Mentioning a nanny tended to make people uncomfortable, and it also led them to make assumptions about me. My parents were wealthy, yes, and I had been sent to boarding school, but the moment I graduated high school, I was on my own.
At eighteen, I had no place to live, no money, and a really hard time getting a student loan because my parents still claimed me as being “dependent.”
Poor little rich girl,Dad had called me when he happened across me working in the student center at Yale. His friends had laughed, but they had no idea that it wasn’t a joke.
“Are you going to finish that sentence?” Achilles asked.
Right.“Anyway, when I came back from school, my parents would be gone. Once they decided I was self-sufficient enough, they didn’t bother to have people take care of me. So I learned to cook and stuff.”
It was a nice way of saying that I’d learned how to forge my parents’ signatures on checks when I ordered groceries and had them delivered. I could cook, even if I didn’t very much. It seemed a bit of a waste to go to a lot of trouble for just one person.
“Smells good in here.” Orestes came into the kitchen. He went to the kettle, which had been sputtering for I didn’t know how long, and turned it off.
“Sorry.” I hadn’t been paying attention.
He began to pull mugs from the cupboards. I went to the pantry, took out tea, and placed the bags in each cup. Soon, the aroma of steeping Earl Grey filled the kitchen.
